Sylvester Manor is a 243-acre historic plantation and nonprofit educational farm on Shelter Island, NY.
Our mission is to cultivate, preserve, and share these lands, buildings, and stories- inviting new thought about the importance of food, culture and place in our daily lives.
Once a Native American hunting and fishing ground, Sylvester Manor has since 1652 been home to fifteen generations of its original European settler family. It reflects a remarkably intact history of America’s evolving tastes, economies and landscapes.
Over time, the place has been transformed from a slaveholding provisioning plantation to an Enlightenment-era farm, then to a pioneering food industrialist’s estate and today to an organic educational farm responsive to, and supported by, our neighbors and friends worldwide.
In light of this history, we envision a farm, a community, and a world where people celebrate food, arts, and inventiveness in the everyday, with a spirit of fairness and joy.
